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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26374438">The Snow in the Bone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clementive/pseuds/Clementive'>Clementive</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Royalty, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Body Horror, Curse Breaking, Dark, Dwarves, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fantasy, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Orochimaru &amp; Haruno Sakura, Kimimaro (Naruto)-centric, Magic, Magical Curse, Mention of Past Orochimaru/Tsunade (Naruto), Mild Gore, Minor Injuries, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-Medic Haruno Sakura, Off-screen Minor Character Death, Orochimaru Being Orochimaru (Naruto), Pre-Relationship, Snow White Elements, minor Kimimaro &amp; Orochimaru (Naruto)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:47:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,408</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26374438</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clementive/pseuds/Clementive</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The sorcerer shaped destiny out of bones. When he cursed a princess, binding her bones to his forest, he saw only the snow in her marrow too late. So, the princess came for his bones.</p><p>Or</p><p>Once upon a time, a cursed princess born under the purest snow taught a sorcerer he was human.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Haruno Sakura/Kimimaro</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>r/NarutoFanfiction Gift Exchange</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Snow in the Bone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thirrin/gifts">Thirrin</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>To Thirrin: I was too late to sign up, but as I went through the sign-ups I saw yours and I had an image in mind. Bones and magic. I just went along with it. I hope you will like it. :) Enjoy!</p><p>I'm tired of Evil Stepmoms. So, here, let's feast upon an Evil Stepdad, a badass Snow-white-ish character breaking her own curse, dwarves, and a sorcerer with a deep attachment to bones. Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The tale started with drifting snow and engulfing loneliness. </p><p>It started with a King with borrowed bones who wanted to rule forever. </p><p>It started with a neglected sorcerer who carved bones and waited and waited each year for the snow. For the King to come.</p><p>It started with a lonely step-daughter who had lost her mother and found, in her grief, she never had a father.</p><p>It started with her anger that fed and shaped the King's hatred.</p><p>And so, the tale started and ended with murder. </p><p>Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was snow.  </p><hr/><p>The forest sank in snow, lush green buried, dried, turned pale, and the Snake King brought his sorcerer an old bone.</p><p>"The princess is to die," King Orochimaru ordered in a velvet voice, his tongue rolling and clicking as would a snake's.</p><p>His clothes hissed as he tossed his fur coat on one of the chairs by the fire. The gesture revealed the snake wrapped around his waist. Its yellow eyes met Kimimaro's and his tongue rolled out. </p><p>"Give it to me," the king cajoled, and the snake hissed and spat, its neck tensed as it hawked up. As loudly, it regurgitated the wrapped bone in its master's hand. The snake then dropped to the floor in a thud. It glided, circling the room of the thatched house. Its yellow eye half-closed, still watching the sorcerer.</p><p>They were both beasts and servants.</p><p>Kimimaro hadn't moved from his chair by the hearth. He held up his face, turning his gaze toward the king. He held up his hand for the bone. Days stretched, long, idle, when he wasn't needed.</p><p>"Good pet," the King chuckled addressing either him or the snake. Kimimaro couldn't be sure. He didn't care.</p><p>He was finally needed once more. Ever since the Queen died, ever since the King was given a new body made of powerful bones bound to the throne room, his visits were scarce, matching the moment of the second snow. Snow that lasted.</p><p>Smirking, King Orochimaru unwrapped the bone from the square of moist dark silk without touching it. He had stolen it from the royal crypt under the palace. It belonged to one of the first queens.</p><p>The king's pale face loomed as he handed the bone to Kimimaro. He carefully weighed the femur in his hand. Its song echoed, crushing, shrill cries and blood, in his own bones.</p><p>"I need a specific command, Your Majesty," Kimimaro said softly, caressing the bone.</p><p>The red marks on his forehead expanded as he became engulfed by the tale of the bone.</p><p>The king turned toward the window overlooking the clearing. The snowflakes were thick, barely drifting. It would be a long winter, he mused. His wife, Queen Tsunade, had also died in the middle of winter leaving him with a stepdaughter, born under the purest snow, turned as fiery as summer. Now, they were one month away from her coming of age. One month away from claiming his kingdom as rightfully hers.</p><p>She needed to die.</p><p>"Guide her in the forest," the king ordered and cocked his head back toward him. "A huntsman will wait for her there."</p><p>The sorcerer nodded once, then he started carving the brown of old age, of old magic, out of the bone.</p><p>It gushed and poured out.</p><p>Soon, Kimimaro cut the bone, jerkily, more energetically, his hands soon growing numb from the cold. Slowly, he cut and cut with his rasp, metal peeling at the bone, carving an irregular and coarse flower.</p><p>He stopped and reached for his riffle lying by his side.</p><p>The king stopped pacing, watching the powdery flower take shape on the knee of the sorcerer.</p><p>Kimimaro refined the petals first, then the stem, his hand gathering more bone dust with his stroke. He shaped destiny out of the bone. He yielded it to his power and soon, the marrow shone in the core of the bone. Soon, his bluish skin, his green dead eyes left the bones and sought his master's.</p><p>The flower pulsed with magic, matching the heartbeat of a dead princess. A princess without destiny.</p><p>In the corner of the hearth, the king's snake hissed.</p><p>The Snake King hissed back.</p><p>Lethargic, the snake unrolled his body, gliding across the wooden floor in a rustle. Its skin gleamed, reflecting bone and snow, as it wrapped itself back around the king's waist. King Orochimaru petted its head, feebly, staring at Kimimaro.</p><p>"Well?"</p><p>"She will go in the forest tonight."</p><p>The Snake King smiled, his face stiff, not matching the bone structure beneath. He held his hand out and Kimimaro grabbed it, desperate and cold. His body instantly grew warmer from the touch. He pressed his mouth to his ring.</p><p>"You did well, boy."</p><p>It was only when the Snake King was gone, when the hearth was lit once more, when the forest, leaves and shadows rustled with the creatures of the night, that Kimimaro picked up the carved bone again. It was only then, that he noticed the snow in the marrow.</p><p>He said nothing.</p><p>He wanted the King to come back.</p><p>He desperately wanted to be needed again.</p><hr/><p>Three days later, Kimimaro woke up in the middle of the night, burning up, a sword pressed against his throat. The room gleamed, stuffy orange, the hearth burning with his magic. Wildly, his eyes darted across the face of the intruder. Sweat rolled down his back.</p><p>The princess smiled crudely, her figure shadowy, backlit. Her hair and face was splattered with blood and grim. Kimimaro blinked. The sword bit harder in his throat. Her smile bit.</p><p>"No magic tricks, you bone freak."</p><p>Kimimaro stared back at her. He was used to obey. He immediately stopped his spell. Behind the princess, a bone crashed on the floor. It cracked, leaking blood, marrow and magic. She turned her head, her pale eyes darting quickly to the bone, then back to her prisoner.</p><p>"I killed the huntsman," she said darkly. "I'd kill you, but you aren't human, are you?"</p><p>Kimimaro rolled back one shoulder, magic tingling at his fingertips, and she was quick to press the sword harder.</p><p>"Answer me!" she snapped.</p><p>Kimimaro licked his lips, the reflection of his green eyes on the blade, boring through her. The red marks of bone sorcery on his forehead darkened, pulsing.</p><p>"No."</p><p>The princess breathed heavily, her eyes still narrowed. He saw her inner struggle in her hesitation. He saw the fatigue in the tension of her shoulder blades. They wanted to sink. They wanted to hunch. Kimimaro licked his lips again, ignoring the anger building in the stiffening of her jawline. There was more magic in shoulder blades. Largest bones always held more magic.</p><p>"The king isn't human either, thanks to you," she hissed and thrust the sword forward.</p><p>It slid his neck open, revealing jerking bones. She gasped, staring at the open wound. With a noise of suction, the skin mended itself, bone pulling at flesh. The wound closed, but the skin still bulged.</p><p>"H-how...?" she asked and reached a hand toward the wound.</p><p>With the back of his palm, Kimimaro knocked the sword out of her hands. She stepped away from him, falling back in a fighting stance. She breathed heavily, watching him with narrowed eyes.</p><p>He didn't move.</p><p>He sighed. </p><p>"Submit to the king, Your Highness. He will rule. He carries this destiny in his bones."</p><p>"They aren't his bones," the princess shot back through her teeth.</p><p>Kimimaro's gaze flashed to her polished teeth. If ground, they would carry great power.</p><p>"It's my kingdom! I carry my destiny in my blood."</p><p>Kimimaro frowned, cocking his head to the side.</p><p>"Why did you come here?" he asked softly.</p><p>There was a finality in bones, in magic, didn't she know that? Her sword was useless against him or the king.</p><p>"Where else was I supposed to go?" the princess hissed and picked up her sword again.</p><p>Her hand twitched by her side, then she sheathed her sword once more.</p><p>"You can't escape the forest. It's in your bones now," Kimimaro observed flatly and shrugged.</p><p>He looked down at his bloody bed sheets, his fingertips grazing the drenched cloth. He murmured a quiet spell, and his blood coiled up, licking up his hand. His skin turned pinkish, coaxing the blood back in.</p><p>When he looked up, he saw her baring her teeth at him in disgust. Kimimaro swiftly approached her and grabbed her jaw.</p><p>He thrusted her head back.</p><p>"You've beautiful teeth."</p><p>Her eyes widened, then narrowed. She head butted him.</p><p>Blood gouged from his nose with a dry snap. Kimimaro stumbled backward, his eyes widened in surprise and shock. His nose snapped into place after a moment. He wiped at the blood with the back of his hand.</p><p>She pinched her lips and balled up her fists at her side.</p><p>"My teeth... Could I trade them for my kingdom?"</p><p>"No, destiny is already carved."</p><p>She didn't reply.</p><p>"Your bones are bound to the forest. His bones are bound to the throne," Kimimaro explained slowly, watching her.</p><p>"That's all?" she said feebly, staring down. Her fists shook by her sides.</p><p>He nodded.</p><p>"That's all."</p><p>She sank in a chair by the table in the middle of the room. She sank, bone by bone, forehead pressed to her hands, shoulders hunched, legs sprawled carelessly.</p><p>"I'm staying here."</p><p>"You're bound to the forest," Kimimaro repeated softly, nodding to himself.</p><p>She could never reach his king, and if the king reached her, she would die. It was reassuring; she was not a threat, and the king would come back, seeking his help, seeking her death.</p><p>"I feel like I'm bound to you," the princess shot back after a moment, smiling wryly.</p><p>Her teeth gleamed with venom, with power.</p><p>"I'll simply wait for him to come back."</p><p>Without another word, Kimimaro returned to his bed, the thought of the king returning comforting.</p><p>He closed his eyes.</p><p>His dreams were velvet black.</p><hr/><p>When Kimimaro woke up, he found the princess sitting in front of the hearth, her shoulders buried under fur. The fire sparkled blue and red, projecting dancing hues on her face and the books she had piled around her.</p><p>Kimimaro didn't say anything as he walked past her to throw a bone in the hearth. The princess stiffened nonetheless, watching him out the corner of her eyes. She had washed her face and neck, but left enough water for him.</p><p>He pretended she wasn't there and went on with his day.</p><p>She read on his books.</p><p>At midday, Kimimaro hesitated. She hadn't moved. He never had a guest before her. Frowning, he carefully filled a bowl of rice porridge. He approached her and paused when she stiffened. He placed the bowl on the ground where he stood and retired to the other side of the house.</p><p>She read on.</p><p>Later, he fed the fire with more bones.</p><p>She read on.</p><hr/><p>The princess stayed reluctantly, accepting his food and help with bitterness and distrust. But she stayed. She needed to stay if the King was to come back, Kimimaro reasoned.</p><p>After a week, he frowned, uneasy, watching the heavy snow now falling restlessly. She watched him. He still watched the snow.</p><p>He still waited for the king.</p><p>One morning, she asked for a bed, and as they waited, hour after hour, her for revenge, and him for hope, Kimimaro couldn't think of a reason not to obey her.</p><p>The next day, he axed down a tree at the first ray of sunshine, feeling her tentative presence behind him. He had enchanted the bones of his arms and back into enormous shapes to speed up the task. More muscles rolled under his skin. He loomed, bigger, his shadow distorted under the cracking and snapping ice. Out of the corner of his eyes, Kimimaro watched her, puffing out sharply as he raised his arm one last time.</p><p>The tree stumbled and fell.</p><p>Without a word, her jaw set, the princess helped him roll the net around the tree, so he could drag it back toward the house.</p><p>The wind ripped, merciless, through skin and fur. The princess hunched her shoulders, holding her hood over her head with a gloved hand. He slowed, watching her.</p><p>She met his stare, her green eyes narrowed, the tip of her nose completely red. She also stopped, matching his look, his pace, his pants.</p><p>Once he had pulled the tree near his house, his bones snapped back into their regular proportions.</p><p>He looked away first to bend down and pull at the net and the tree rolled, shaking off snow and small branches. Kimimaro frowned, uneasy by her presence. She watched his hands, but she didn't bend down to help him.</p><p>"Could you teach me magic?" she asked softly and Kimimaro who noticed bones first, rather than skin, looked up in sharp surprised and stared at her ashen lips.</p><p>"Could you?" she insisted.</p><p>Kimimaro's gaze drifted back to her eyes and shook his head.</p><p>"You know I can't," he said stiffly and returned to his task.</p><p>"I thought maybe..." her voice wobbled. She started again, her voice stronger: "I never heard of a bone sorcerer, I thought maybe it was dark magic." Her stare was insisting, burning at the nape of his neck. He didn't slow. "If it's forbidden magic..."</p><p>"It's not," he said flatly. "I'm the last bone sorcerer. The king saved me."</p><p>Kimimaro started to cut off the branches he didn't need from the tree. She kicked at the snow, her laughter humourless. The curve of her mouth was always sharp.</p><p>"I'm his stepdaughter, but he wouldn't save me," she said dryly.</p><p>"Hn."</p><p>The snow snapped under her steps. She bent over the tree and started roughly pulling at branches. Her gestures formed large arcs, rigid and angry. Useless.</p><p>"Why do you help him?" she asked after a moment.</p><p>Kimimaro frowned.</p><p>"I've no other purpose."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>She startled when she looked up and found him already staring at her, his pale gaze unflinching. His lips curled up, stiff, with disgust.</p><p>"I carve bones. I carve destiny. I'm a weapon."</p><p>She reddened at his tone, but she refused to look away.</p><p>"What's your name?"</p><p>Kimimaro looked back at her, surprised. Surprised by the softness of the arch of her eyebrows. Surprised by the way her hand grabbed her other wrist. Delicate bones, among dark powerful ones.</p><p>"Do you have a name?" she repeated.</p><p>He hesitated. To the king, he was a sorcerer. He had no use for name, but his bones sang his name back to him. Bones never lied.</p><p>"Well?"</p><p>He gritted his teeth.</p><p>"Kimimaro," he said reluctantly.</p><p>"I'm Sakura," she said and tilted her head in acknowledgement.</p><p>"I know."</p><p>Distracted, he returned to cutting the tree apart, his bones restlessly shifting under his skin. He shifted from one shape to another, magic pulsing and stiffening around them. She took a step back, yelping. The branches in her arms crashed on the snow.</p><p>Kimimaro didn't look up.</p><p>He was a sorcerer again.</p><p>He was nameless again.</p><p>She was temporary. She was a cursed princess. She was nothing.</p><p>All that mattered was that the king would be back. He felt his teeth with his tongue. They grew, uneven, sharp and deadly. The king was all that mattered.</p><p>"I'll kill him, you know," she trusted her chin forward, daring him to argue.</p><p>Kimimaro froze.</p><p>His skull snapped back to his bone structure. His skin was transparent, obscured by his white breath, gleaming and shuddering faintly. The sun was higher, dripping white onto the whole sky. Snow started falling again.</p><p>Sakura didn't look away.</p><p>Kimimaro licked his dry lips, tasting the metallic edge of blood and bones.</p><p>"Then, you will use me," he snarled, but it echoed like a prayer, under drifting snow.</p><p>Sakura shook her head, her brows knitted together.</p><p>His snarl cut through protruding bones and teeth, flashing with anger and desperation.</p><p>"I'm not like him."</p><p>"You'll see. Weapons... steel or bones, weapons are meant to be used."</p><p>He brought the axe down again on the tree.</p><hr/><p>Sleep eluded Kimimaro. He thought of a life without commands, without the King.</p><p>He rolled over until he was on his back, staring up at the drying bones suspended from the ceiling. The King had given him this house over ten years ago and Kimimaro had dedicated his life to serving him. He had built him a body. He had bound the bones to the throne room. There was nothing left for him to offer the king, except this stubborn princess.</p><p>
  <em>'But why didn't he come?'</em>
</p><p>His bones moaned, and he thought, once more of the snow he had glimpsed in the bone.</p><p>Kimimaro turned his head, toward her. She was curled on her side, backlit, resting on her new bed. Her head faced away from him, her pink tresses fanned out across her pillow and back. He could feel her bared teeth, her straight spine.</p><p>Bones didn't lie.</p><p>Sakura wouldn't need him, Kimamoro knew, and he tensed at the thought. If she killed the king, she would not command his bones. She would break them. She would turn him away, and then, what? What would he have left?</p><p>Bone dust.</p><p>Rotting marrow.</p><p>He didn't sleep, absorbed in his greatest fears.</p><p>She didn't sleep, absorbed in her revenge.</p><hr/><p>After two weeks, the weather had warmed. The snow had melted, snaking across lands, between trees and rocks, dripping down the roof of the house.</p><p>As the forest shook once more with life, Kimimaro had managed to hunt a deer.</p><p>Sakura sat on the ground, watching him carve out the meat, her stomach tightening and growling. They hadn't eaten anything fresh in two weeks. Spring smelled musty and rusty. And they were hungry.</p><p>"Bones can break," Sakura said.</p><p>"Yes," Kimimaro replied simply and cut the meat carefully.</p><p>She watched him, her gaze burning.</p><p>"It seems to me like destiny can be broken if bones break."</p><p>Kimimaro didn't reply, his knife slicing through the meat, detaching flesh from bones. The bones hummed back to him, shifting under the blade.</p><p>Sakura sucked a breath in, watching the bones rattle, but she couldn't hear them sing like he could.</p><p>"What are you doing?" she squeaked out. "I thought we were going to eat it..." she gulped, uneasy, her cheeks flushed with embarrassed.</p><p>"I could break its bones now, but it would still be dead," Kimimaro said softly and turned his head toward her. "Do you understand?"</p><p>Eyes widened with horror, chest heaving, Sakura stared at the knife. Blood dripped and dotted on the greyish grass.</p><p>"Do you understand?" he repeated, and the marks on his forehead gleamed and darkened.</p><p>"My birthday is next week. He won't come until next winter, I guess, once he's fully king. When he comes, I'll have no mercy."</p><p>"You can't kill him."</p><p>"What if..." she bit her mouth, her fists clenched at her sides. "What if you carved out his bones?"</p><p>Kimimaro paused.</p><p>"Command me," he said softly.</p><p>Sakura shook her head.</p><p>"Don't you want to be free?"</p><p>Kimimaro cocked his head to the side, frowning.</p><p>"What do you mean? I've no shackles. I'm not bound to this forest like you are."</p><p>"This isn't what I meant... You're..."</p><p>"What?" Kimimaro prompted coolly, disgusted by her hesitation.</p><p>She should command him; he didn't understand why she wouldn't. She should be a queen and make him his. And he resented her. He resented her for the King's absence. He resented her for being here, calling him by a name he hadn't used in years, asking, always, for furniture and food from him. But never, ever commanding.</p><p>Never, ever being his queen.</p><p>"You've no guts," Kimimaro snapped between pants.</p><p>Sakura flushed with anger, the bones of her jaw and shoulders tightening.</p><p>"Don't you want to be something else than his pet?" she snarled.</p><p>"No, I want to be needed," he shouted, and his skeleton quivered, stretching out beyond his skin.</p><p>Her lips didn't waver. Her bones didn't protest. She didn't command him. She spun on her heels and returned to the house.</p><p>Kimimaro swallowed with difficulty, then returned to the carcass' bones. He inhaled sharply, shaken, and his bones returned inside his body with difficulty. He turned back toward the house, but he couldn't see her through the front windows.</p><p>Numbly, Kimimaro picked up his knife again.</p><p>She had come for his bones, he felt.</p><p>She was not a threat to the king. She was a threat to him.</p><p>His grip shook around the knife.</p><hr/><p>The dwarves came the next day, bouncing and shouting happily. They had found two old bones in the mines. Kimimaro listened to them, distracted. Sakura stood some distance from them, observing the scene with curiosity.</p><p>The seven dwarves' tale about their finding the bones unravelled and thinned when they noticed the princess. They turned an identical face toward her, their blues eyes sparkling with mischief or sleepiness. Happy Naruto grinned at her, nudging of his Grumpy brother.</p><p>"The sorcerer has a bride," he cackled.</p><p>"Shut up, you idiot!" Grumpy Naruto snapped. "Sorcerers don't marry."</p><p>"She's a guest," Kimimaro answered coldly and touched the bones carefully. His head snapped up. "I told you not to touch the bones you find."</p><p>Sleepy Naruto yawned and scratched the back of his neck.</p><p>"I almost dropped it, I had to..."</p><p>"I'll need to drain it from your aura," Kimimaro said through clenched teeth. "I told you this."</p><p>Coquettish Naruto had made his way toward Sakura. He took Sakura's hand in his and bowed over it.</p><p>"I'm Coquettish Naruto," he said, batting his eyelashes at her before introducing every one of his identical brothers: Grumpy, Sleepy, Happy, Sneezy, Doc, and Dopey.</p><p>Sakura laughed uneasily, withdrawing her hand from his grip.</p><p>"Charmed. I'm Sakura."</p><p>"You're pretty," Dopey Naruto said and clapped his hands over his mouth.</p><p>She blushed. Her smile freezing on her lips. Sleepy Naruto nodded before he dropped his head on the table to doze off. Grumpy Naruto clicked his tongue, a blush creeping up his neck and looked away.</p><p>Sneezy refused to sneeze, watching her.</p><p>Kimimaro slammed the money on the table, startling them.</p><p>"10," he said simply.</p><p>"WHAT?" Grumpy Naruto snapped and shook his fist at him. Sleepy Naruto was the only dwarf who didn't actively protest with his brothers. The dwarves all spoke at the same time, pushing and pulling at each other.</p><p>"Shut up, you idiots!" Grumpy Naruto snapped and turned to shake his finger under Kimimaro's nose. "You usually pay us more than that, you thief!"</p><p>"I told you not to touch the bone," Kimimaro countered, his voice hardening. "You're making my work more difficult."</p><p>Sakura sat at the table and Kimimaro froze, momentarily distracted. She observed the dwarves' pickaxes with curiosity, but her gaze gleamed with something that twisted his stomach.</p><p>"You dig through the ground with this?" she asked with feigned disinterest.</p><p>All the dwarves turned their heads toward her, momentarily forgetting their aguement with Kimimaro.</p><p>"Oh yes," Happy Naruto said cheerfully, nodding rapidly. "Nothing can stop a dwarf and his pickaxe. Believe it!"</p><p>Sakura beamed at him, and the dwarves watched her with awe and a vague smile. Sleepy Naruto had opened one eye to watch her. Kimimaro's mouth hardened in an unwavering line.</p><p>"Take your money and get out," Kimimaro ordered darkly, and the dwarves coughed and cleared their throats, smoothing their clothes and beards.</p><p>Four dwarves dragged Sleepy Naruto from his seat, shouting at him to wake up. Grumpy Naruto grabbed Coquettish Naruto's collar and pulled him out of the house. Beaming, Dopey Naruto waved at her, his head cocked to the side in a childish gesture. </p><p>Sakura waved at them goodbye. Her smile was back, razor-sharp, when she turned toward Kimimaro.</p><p>His stomach dropped.</p><p>Soon, she would leave he knew.</p><hr/><p>Sakura spent the next two days, re-reading some of his books, tapping contentedly on some lines, nodding at others.</p><p>Kimimaro fed the fire with bones for her at all hours of the day and night, the magical flames warmer and more luminous.</p><p>He cooked for her.</p><p>He never tried to stop her.</p><p>"Is there a way to call the dwarves back?" she asked on the evening of the second day.</p><p>Kimimaro held his breath. He had never admitted to himself until now that he had grown used to her presence. And he dreaded being once more alone, abandoned. The king, and now the princess, everyone abandoned him.</p><p>It pained him, discovering so late, too late, that he wasn't as needed as he had once thought.</p><p>"Kimimaro?" Sakura pressed him and sat by his side at the kitchen table. "Do they just come by whenever they find a bone?"</p><p>Her face was set with determination, shadows and light of the magical fire caught on her skin. He smiled thinly at her.</p><p>"People only come to me when they have a bone."</p><p>"Oh."</p><p>She bit her lip, deep in thoughts.</p><p>"You could seek them out," Kimimaro exhaled and blinked. "At their house. I know where it is."</p><p>Sakura looked up and smiled, softer now.</p><p>"Thank you."</p><p>She grazed his arm, but he pulled it back sharply. Her eyes widened.</p><p>"You're human," Sakura stated, breathless, curling and uncurling her fingers, still feeling the warmth of his skin.</p><p>"Hn."</p><p>Kimimaro focused on the bones the dwarves had brought him. They gleamed, soft red, still being drained from the dwarves' aura. It dripped in a jar. He focused on the dulled song of the old bones, instead of the one drifting from her bones.</p><p>She sat back against the chair, watching him, her hands clasped firmly on her laps.</p><p>"I never understood why you don't want to be treated like you're human," she said low.</p><p>'<em>Am I?</em>' Kimimaro thought and merely blinked. '<em>Am I human? </em><em>Just because my skin is warm? Just because my heart beats?</em>'</p><p>Sakura smiled and held up her hand for him.</p><p>He had spoken aloud, he realized, and froze.</p><p>"Here."</p><p>His mouth dry, he watched her movement, the curves of her open palm held up. She frowned with concentration, joints rolling, then tapping. When he didn't move, she withdrew her hand laughing uneasily.</p><p>"I guess not."</p><p>Her laughter exposed her throat.</p><p>She had beautiful bones.</p><p>Kimimaro stilled at the thought, his mouth tightening.</p><p>"The forest is trees and ground," she said softly.</p><p>"Yes," Kimimaro replied stiffly.</p><p>She smiled, triumphant, her jaw set.</p><p>"I'll bring the forest to him."</p><p>He gazed past her at the sakura-shaped bone. It leaked snow, fissured, quivering faintly with the soft tune it sang back to him. The destiny in the bone. The snow in the bone.</p><p>His skin prickled, ice and pain.</p><p>"I'll take you to the dwarves tomorrow," Kimimaro said through marbled lips.</p><hr/><p>With the help of the dwarves, Sakura stretched the forest below the earth, one fist of soil at the time. The underground tunnel took two days to dig, the dwarves singing and regularly calling out to her. She laughed more often now, Kimimaro noticed. The corner of her mouth and eyes wrinkled and creased easily, and he saw yet another side of her. She was restless, helping the dwarves, never sitting back, carving her own way out of the forest where she was bound.</p><p>And Kimimaro felt the curse loosen with dread.</p><p>She was going back home.</p><p>She would sit on her throne.</p><p>On the last day, Kimimaro turned away from the gaping hole on the ground to walk out of the house, but Sakura stopped him. Her hand hovered on his arm. He tensed. She flexed her fingers, then dropped her hand.</p><p>They faced each other, uneasily.</p><p>"Don't you want to see how the story ends?" Sakura asked, biting her lip.</p><p>Kimimaro shook his head.</p><p>"I already know."</p><p>He thought of snow and the beauty in her bones. Now, he knew. Now, he was certain.</p><p>He would leave too.</p><p>Sakura turned back toward the hole in the ground, then paused again, her shoulders hunched forward, her pelvis bent. He stilled, unable to move away. Unable to look away. Sakura pushed back her braids and looked at him over her shoulder.</p><p>"I'll come back," she whispered.</p><p>He nodded.</p><p>"You'll use me," Kimimaro said feebly, his heart beating, trashing against his bones. His last hope. His bones quivered. His soul quivered.</p><p>The king had taught him to be terrified of what awaited him away from the kingdom.</p><p>Her eyes grew veiled and hesitant. Her flesh dropped over bones, her face stilling in a sad expression.</p><p>"So long, Kimimaro."</p><p>There now was a finality in her voice.</p><p>There was a finality in her bones.</p><p>Sakura straightened her back and climbed down the hole, her hand on the pommel of her sword. Her silhouette grew darker and darker.</p><p>It made him uneasy, her last words, how quickly she disappeared from view. Kimimaro opened his mouth. He stretched his teeth. He widened his jaw. He paced, fumbling a reason to call out to her one last time.</p><p>He fumbled and fumbled, more aware of his wild heartbeat against his ribcage than the rest of his bones.</p><p>Soon, he couldn't hear her or the dwarves' loud voices.</p><p>He spun on his heels and stumbled out of the dwarves' house.</p><p>Mud clung to his boots.</p><p>Rain sank in his bones.</p><p>His eyes flickered across the welkin, searching for snow and finding none.</p><p>It was spring.</p><p>He ran.</p><hr/><p>Kimimaro stumbled in his house.</p><p>Quickly, disoriented, he aligned three bones, one old and two younger ones. He panted, drenched. His teeth chattered, his bones rattled, and far, far away, at the castle, borrowed bones screeched incessantly.</p><p>Gasping and sweating, he ignited the bones difficulty. They burst. A portal formed, red, stretching and wobbling, and Kimimaro stepped inside with weakening legs.</p><p>He was sucked in and fell on all fours in snow, leagues away.</p><p>His ungloved hands gleamed polished under the moon, white, cadaveric.</p><p>He puffed and puffed, swayed, then crashed on the snow. Ice cut his cheek and his teeth grew out of his mouth, ripping his lips.</p><p>His blood dotted the snow.</p><p>Through heavy lids, Kimimaro watched the crisp eternal snow around the village where he was born. Snowflakes drifted and swirled.</p><p>He had followed the snow in her marrow and come home.</p><p>His eyes fluttered close, his bones finally at rest. They sank, their song reaching for the earth, and they found warmth in the ice.</p><p>Kimimaro's mind drifted along snowflakes. He saw black, his body stilling. The king had always told him, he would die if he came back. Kimimaro didn't care wether it was the truth or not.</p><p>He slept.</p><hr/><p>The spell binding the King to the throne room was completely undone when Kimimaro awoke.</p><p>He struggled to move his body. He crashed back on his back, breathing with difficulty. The snow had melted around his body. His fingers twitched and touched grass, morning dew clinging to his fingertips. He squinted under the burning white sky and raised his hand above his face. Water dripped the length of his arm and on his face.</p><p>He closed his eyes.</p><p>He rested.</p><hr/><p>Kimimaro travelled East, away from the Enchanted Forest, past the eternal snow of his childhood into the stuffy air of a desert fed by djinns and shadows. He met elementals and sorcerers bound to animal shapes. He met sorceresses who could read the sun and moon and draw spells across skin.</p><p>There, he touched bones on his own accord, hesitantly, then more confidently.</p><p>He drained illnesses from marrow. He soothed misplaced bones and realigned them.</p><p>No one feared him.</p><p>No one hunted him.</p><p>And he began to think maybe the King didn't shield him from a cruel world.</p><hr/><p>Kimimaro travelled past the temples of the tallest mountains and haunted ghosts. He met monks who had preserved texts from his kind. He met ghosts bound to buried bones which he set free. He saw dragons and firebirds that never stopped to greet him.</p><p>There, he rest and learned burial rituals for gods he had never heard of. He listened to bones and monks alike.</p><p>Whenever he spoke or showed his magic, a monk would kneel by a writing table, brush in hand, and record everything.</p><p>And Kimimaro began to think maybe the King cared about the wrong knowledge, the wrong spells.</p><hr/><p>Kimimaro travelled through kingdoms and countries without kings. He met fortune-tellers, warriors with enchanted swords and creatures that roamed only at night. He met travellers who, like him, had no destination.</p><p>There, he sat around magical fire that repelled creatures, hot soup and meat pressed on him. Warriors traded stories with him. All stories had an end except his.</p><p>And Kimimaro looked up at the smoked up night sky, and began to think maybe it was time to return home.</p><p>It was fall, the first snow was mere weeks away.</p><hr/><p>Kimimaro turned on himself, his new robes billowing, his eyes fixed on the ceiling of the throne room. He had never been inside the castle before. Distantly, he felt the King's bones under his feet. The new marble tiles gleamed barely letting the bones beneath echo and vibrate.</p><p>Sakura had done well, he mused.</p><p>The King's bones had been bound to the Throne until the end.</p><p>Kimimaro's attention drifted to the empty throne, darting then the opened doors leading to the inner gardens. Branches agitated by the restless wind projected unsteady shadows across the banners of the Kingdom, a burning leaf.</p><p>"A sorcerer is here to see you, Your Majesty," Kimimaro heard a lady-in-waiting say and stiffened. He touched his hair bound at his nape. Nervously, he smoothed his robes in the long pause that followed.</p><p>Maybe she would refuse to see him.</p><p>Maybe she didn't feel the need to see him like he did about her.</p><p>Maybe. <em>Maybe</em>.</p><p>"Show him the way," Sakura answered finally.</p><p>He felt like he waited an eternity for the lady-in-waiting to come back. Looking at him with curiosity out of the corner of her eyes, she curtsied and indicated the way.</p><p>"This way, Sorcerer."</p><p>She walked ahead of him, her blue skirts grazing the floor, her back straight. They stepped outside and walked down the stairs of the veranda to reach the garden. The apples were in full bloom, weighing heavily down their branches. Birds chirped and sang back at each other, flying above their heads.</p><p>The lady-in-waiting stopped some distance from the queen. She bowed, her hands pressed to her midsection. Uneasy, Kimimaro bowed his head to her, his eyes never leaving the queen.</p><p>She had her back to him, tending to the apple tree in front of her. Her hair was held up, exposing the smooth skin of her neck. Her pale dress billowed in the wind as she reached up to pick an apple. Baskets at her feet were full with the dark fruit.</p><p>Kimimaro took another step forward.</p><p>Queen Sakura halted, her arm half-reaching up. Slowly, she turned around to look at him, her arm dropping. Her palm rested briefly on her forehead where the jewel of her diadem gleamed. Her skin was smoother, clearer, the grim and harshness of the forest washed away, but her eyes still sparkled with the same intensity.</p><p>He bowed at last.</p><p>"Your Majesty."</p><p>Sakura smiled and bent to pick up an apple from her basket. She played with an apple, its dark skin pulsing with magic.</p><p>"You look... tan."</p><p>"I've travelled far," Kimimaro replied stiffly and roughly indicated the horizon.</p><p>"Ah. Is that so?"</p><p>She looked down at the apple in her hands, her skin flushed. Kimimaro held his breath, drawing closer to her. She looked up and he held her gaze, his mouth working.</p><p>"You buried him," he said finally and cocked his head toward the throne room.</p><p>Sakura stiffened, straightening her spine, and she looked, once more regal and unattainable.</p><p>"Yes," she said curtly.</p><p>Kimimaro gave her a small smile.</p><p>"I'm not here to undo anything you've done."</p><p>She relaxed and her cheeks grew once more pink. She cleared her throat.</p><p>"Why are you here?"</p><p>She shrugged one shoulder and looked away.</p><p>"To offer my services," Kimimaro said softly, searching her face. "I've learned healing techniques and other... spells. I didn't consider you would have this many apples for good wishes though." his lips quirked up and his gaze wandered across her trees.</p><p>"My mother grew these. They are good medicine," she laughed uneasily. "But you knew that."</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>Sakura moved, jerkily, nervous, her bones unsettled.</p><p>"You should tell me about your travels," she said evenly, as she reached for another apples.</p><p>"I should, yes."</p><p>She paused again and carefully dropped the apple in the basket at her feet.</p><p>"May I ask... why are you back?" she asked after a moment of hesitation.</p><p>Kimimaro stepped closer to her so they were side-by-side facing the apple tree.</p><p>"Bones don't lie."</p><p>She cocked her head to the side and laughed uneasily.</p><p>"I don't understand."</p><p>"I lost sight of what my magic means. I lost sight of what the songs of bones reveal about people. Especially myself. Maybe he took advantage of the fact I was a child when he found me, I don't know."</p><p>Sakura's brows were furrowed as she watched him. He inclined his head, considering the tree, then her. He grazed her hand.</p><p>He felt snow.</p><p>He felt warmth.</p><p>Home.</p><p>"What does it mean now?" Sakura asked breathless, her lips parted.</p><p>"The same it has always meant. Bones do not lie."</p><p>She laughed, radiant.</p><p>"You're very cryptic."</p><p>"You've beautiful bones," Kimimaro whispered.</p><p>Sakura startled, one hand pressed to her chest. She started at his eyes, then his lips, never crossing the distance between them, but her bones didn't lie. Neither did his.</p><p>"I couldn't tell you until now, but now I can. Now, I can be here again. By your side."</p><p>Sakura bent down, holding her skirts, blood rushing to her face. She picked an apple for him and pressed it in his hands, wrapping her fingers around his. Her bones hummed. She smiled faintly, looking at their joined hands before looking up at his face.</p><p>"I'm glad you came back. I looked for you, but you were gone," she said softly.</p><p>"Thank you for not commanding me then," he replied just as softly.</p><p>Kimimaro held her hands firmly. He felt her pulse, her skin, her bones, and his heart sang back to it all.</p><p>They both had snow in their bones.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading! Kudos and comments are appreciated! :)</p><p>Stay safe, you guys &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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